A crispy shortcrust pastry base, creamy, sour and sweet lemon cream and fluffy Italian meringue on top. Yum!
Ingredients
Shortcrust pastry
185 g all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. confectioner’s sugar
125 g cold butter, cubed
3 tbsp. cold water
Lemon cream
5 lemons, juice and zest
4 eggs
4 egg yolks
200 g sugar
400 ml cream
Italian meringue
200 g sugar
100 ml water
4 pasteurized egg whites
Approach
Shortcrust pastry
Mix the flour and confectioner’s sugar in a bowl. Crumble the butter into it and quickly assemble the dough with water. Roll out the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper, remove one sheet of baking paper and lay the dough into a pie dish about 26 cm in diameter so the baking paper is on top. Refrigerate the pie dish for 30 minutes.
Heat the oven to 220 C convection.
Pour rice or chickpeas on the baking paper and bake the pie base blind for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the lemon cream.
Lemon cream
Blend the juice and zest of the lemons with the eggs, egg yolks and sugar. Whip the cream. Fold it into the mixture. Pour the lemon cream onto the pie base and bake at 150 C convection for about 30 minutes. The cream should be a little “wobbly” when you take the pie out of the oven. The cream will set as it cools. Refrigerate the pie for about 2 hours.
Italian meringue
Just before the pie is to be served, make the meringue: Boil the sugar and water in a thick-bottomed pot. Boil it up to 117 C. Meanwhile whisk the egg whites until stiff. Add the sugar syrup in a thin stream as you continue to whisk. Whisk the meringue for about 8 minutes until it has cooled and has become thick and fluffy.
Spread the meringue over the cold pie and burn it gently with a kitchen torch. Serve the pie immediately. Enjoy!
